Playing music out loud on public transport should be banned, the Tories have said.
The Conservatives have proposed using on-the-spot fines to crack down on passengers blaring music or videos from their phones on buses and trains.
Mebbe just polite societies – which may or may not be related to trust.
There’s never been a scrote free society but anecdotally at least they did used to be under control.
Who is going to challenge them to issue the fines? The last ticket inspector I saw on the DLR weighted about 80lb soaking wet and I could have taken him at arm wrestling without much effort!
Do you not have “disturbing the peace” sorts of offenses? I’m guessing that playing loud music in such places is already banned.
Bobby b
I’d be surprised if it wasn’t in the London Underground by laws.
It is certainly banned on continental metro systems, Munich for instance.
Another example of politicians being out of touch with reality. As Julia has said, who is going to issue the on the spot fines? Round my way all buses are single manned by the driver, and he isn’t going to risk being assaulted by the scrotes.
Since we’ve had to become accustomed to knives with blades over 1″ long being illegal but machetes in the right hands are invisible it would take a brave person to enforce the law. And it is yet another example why voting Tory would be a waste of crayon…
JuliaM,
And therein lies the problem. Oh, and are these people even going to give the right address, are they going to pay the fine?
The thing with trains is that avoiding their general shittiness isn’t difficult. When is a train actually better than a car? A long distance business trip to a congested city, or a commute. You’ll put up with the high prices, the crap punctuality and reliability, how management can’t manage to get the right number of carriages to stations, despite doing it for 150+ years, pissheads, people listening to techno, that no-one moves someone sitting on your reserved seat, or some bloke eating fish curry, because it’s better than crawling for miles and paying high congestion charges. And that’s actually a very small number of large cities. If you’re going to a large town like Reading or Slough you might as well drive.
A car means you can sit and listen to your Michael Ball CD, you don’t get any other asshole, it’s punctual, reliable. If you want a coffee you can stop at Starbucks and get a good one rather than the garbage on the trolley, and the toilet will work. So unless roads are really congested or you have to pay fees, or you’re going wine tasting, you avoid them.
It’s why we’re blowing billions per year on the railways now. Those of us who can work remote and avoid the shitshow do, so rail income dropped massively and where the money from commuters used to prop up Elsie and Doris paying £6 each and getting a whole carriage to themselves to go from Ambridge to Camberwick Green, that went, so the government covers it. Someone is going to have to do another Beeching/Serpell on the railways. Shut 60+% of it down. No consultation, no listening to whining. Just do it.
I’ve often thought the same for buskers.
Bloke playing the guitar badly, or even the trumpet, not a huge problem because it only carries so far, especially in a busy street. But once it’s electronically amplified he’s taking over the whole town centre.
As long as the same Powers That Be class a quick bout of Affirmative Citizen Action to deal with the Annoyance as “Assault” , nothing will change.
But things are Seen to Be Done, so it’s all UltrGoodPlus™ in Clown World.
Sort of the same thing is happening over here in Clogland after a brutal murder of a young girl by an Asylum Seeker.
Large Billboards stating “Claim Back the Night” , lots of waffling about how “Femicide” is Bad™, and all other forms of indignant bruhaha.
But a suggestion that we actually “take back the Night” by doing what is actually needed to accomplish that, is seen as Excessively Violent, and Racial Profiling, and…. by the same biddies and wet rags doing all the Protesting.
Rapists and muggers are, in general, not really impressed by large slogan billboards. Especially when they know anyone actually trying to stop them can be successfully accused of and charged with assault or worse, aided by Activist Lawyers who will actually take their side….
The Rot is deep… Clown World is real…
Shut 60+% of it down. No consultation, no listening to whining. Just do it.
Just open the whole railway up to competition. Let Virgin trains et al have a go at whatever they want. If they make it work then great. If not then those parts won’t be used.
Grikath said:
“Large Billboards stating “Claim Back the Night”, lots of waffling about how “Femicide” is Bad™, and all other forms of indignant bruhaha. … But a suggestion that we actually “take back the Night” by doing what is actually needed to accomplish that, is seen as Excessively Violent, and Racial Profiling, and…. by the same biddies and wet rags doing all the Protesting.”
That’s good.
I wonder what causes it. Is it cognitive dissonance by the Left, or is it simply that they believe it’s more important to declare something than to do it?
Jimmers,
Yes, good point.
But I think it would be a struggle to make money, and not just because of the arseholes in the unions and government inefficiency but the costs of railways as a technology. Railways have massive static costs. The price of trains, having trained drivers, track maintenance, staff at the station, signalling people. And it’s hard to reduce a lot of those costs.
RichardT,
A Pigou tax should be levied on buskers with amps. They profit from a tiny number of people who give them money at a cost of noise pollution to everyone else.
The only busking I liked was in Copenhagen where it seemed like the kids from the local conservatoire were out making some money. Which suits walking around a city as music rather than a shit version of I Shot the Sheriff.
Bring back the Routemaster:
– can just step on bus wherever you think you can manage it
– stairs at the back produce a “panopticon” effect where there are no “back seats” away from disapproving gazes
Further, I’m starting to think a Scotland-style “free bus passes for the youf” scheme might be a necessary evil, like Ankh-Morpork’s Thieves Guild:
– taxpayer has to pay to subsidise a bunch of oiks
– but now they’re all carrying photo ids
– and they know that if they act too much like oiks, they get the free buses taken away
All this, of course, would depend on the rules actually being enforced. But it would certainly stop a bunch of young-adults enriching the bus with their shit music if the conductor told them to show their cards or leave the bus, scanned all the cards, and every month a few lucky lottery winners got their free travel taken away.
The MSM chose to illustrate their story of this plan with an image of the sort of miscreants who would do the sort of thing like play music with no headphones – a white middle aged man.
Presumably playing Radio 4 too loud and disturbing all the black rappers riding the Tube!